Join us in Shanghai from 30th June-1sth July 2014 for the annual International Creative Science Event
The theme of this meeting is “Product and Business Innovation“. It builds on earlier events The Outer Limits, Creative Science 2010, Creative Science 2011, Creative Science 2013 and AOM’13, The methodology employed is that we invite researchers to submit fictional stories that extrapolate forward by 10+ years a vision of their area of research. This approach is called Science-Fiction Prototyping (SFP) and has the aim of providing a means for differing members of society to have conversations about the kind of futures they would like (or not!). The event is structured around a series of presentation that were selected from the usual peer-review system. While this event is particularity well suited to researchers wishing to submit an SFP about their research, this workshop is open to non-presenting attendees who simply want to enjoy the presentations.
Background
Science-Fiction Prototyping (SFP) was created by Brian David Johnson (Intel’s Futurist) as a means to help Intel engineers think about the applications for their integrated circuits. This was a particular challenge to Intel as it can take 7-10 years from concept to manufacture (up to 3 generations of computer or 6 generations of mobile phone away!). Clearly drafting specifications for products so far into the future, requires a way to think about that future, and to hold conversations with the stakeholders of that future; SFP became that tool. SFPs can be created by anyone who has an interest in thinking about, or influencing the future. Typically, SFPs are written by scientist, engineers or business professionals but they are equally open to members of the public including school children who may want to influence the work of researchers. In this way science fiction prototypes act as a way of involving the widest section of the population in determining the research agenda, thereby making science and business investment, and output more useful to everyone. The goals of the workshop are to act as a catalyst of this new approach by acting as a forum where researchers from differing disciplines can come together to explore how to develop this area.
This year, in addition to the usual workshop presentations, in conjunction with Intel, the Creative-Science Foundation and Imagine’14 we are organising a competition whereby all workshop, forum and conference attendees are invited to write a 25-word story (a Micro-SFP) that describes a vision they have for a future intelligent environments product. More details of this competition can be found in any of the following; the registration packs, the IE’14 Micro-SFP Challange Entry Form, the ‘IE’14 “Challenges‘ web page and the Creative-Science ‘Micro-SFP’ web pages.
Below is the programme for CS’14. We hope you will be able to join us in Shanghai, a magnificent mega-city that embraces many of the visions Creative Science aspires to – a fitting place for us all to meet and engage in discussing the future!
The Creative-Science 2014 Programme
CS14 Preface
- 9.00 ‘CS’14 Welcome & Introduction‘ – Vic CALLAGHAN
- 9.30 ‘White Knights of the Smart City‘ (presentation) – Tiina KYMÄLÄINEN, Farrukh SAHAR and Jarmo PALVIAINEN
- 10.00 ‘Science Fiction Prototyping as a Tool to Turn Patents into Innovative Marketable Products‘ – Jan ZYBURA
- 10.30 TEA BREAK
- 11.00 ‘21st Century Robot: A Science Fiction Prototype‘ – Brian David Johnson *KEYNOTE*
- 11.30 ‘Some thoughts about the future of intelligent buildings and smart transportation‘ – Peng Liu and Shumei Zhang
- 12.00 ‘Micro-Futures‘ (presentation) – Vic Callaghan
- 12.30 “SFP as Catalyst for Futuristic Creative Business” – Hsuan-Yi Wu (Jen) *KEYNOTE*
- 13.00 LUNCH
You can download the complete IE’14 workshop proceedings from the IOS website. Also, you can visit our sister event Imagine’14 to see the results of our micro-SFP Challenge.
Non-presenting contributions
“The 21st Century Robot; a graphical visualization” – Yuhan Cao (Dudu). This is a series of three views of 6 year old Yuhan Cao’s imaginative vision of a “21st Century Robot” (see below). The organizers of CS’14 were so impressed with Dudu’s design that they decided he should be awarded the ‘best junior SFP prize’.
Some Glimpses of CS’13
Intel’s founding father of Science Fiction Prototyping, Brian David Johnson, presenting on his latest project; The 21st Century Robot (a crowd designed and developed domestic robot)
The multi-talented Hsuan-Yi (Jen) Wu presenting her pioneering work concerning the application of Science Fiction Prototyping to business entrepreneurship (and later, in a more relaxed social setting, entertaining the attendees with her musical skills)
Keynote Speakers
Brian David Johnson
The future is Brian David Johnson’s business. As a futurist at Intel Corporation, his charter is to develop an actionable 10 -15 year vision for the future of technology. His work is called “futurecasting”-using ethnographic field studies, technology research, trend data, and even science fiction to provide Intel with a pragmatic vision of consumers and computing. Along with reinventing TV, Johnson has been pioneering development in artificial intelligence, robotics, and using science fiction as a design tool. He speaks and writes extensively about future technologies in articles (The Wall Street Journal, Slate, IEEE Computer) and both science fiction and fact books (Vintage Tomorrows, Science Fiction Prototyping: Designing the Future with Science Fiction, Screen Future: The Future of Entertainment Computing and the Devices we Love, and Fake Plastic Love). Johnson lectures around the world and teaches as a professor at The University of Washington and The California College of the Arts MBA program. He appears regularly on Bloomberg TV, PBS, FOX News, and the Discovery Channel and has been featured in Scientific American, The Technology Review, Forbes, INC, and Popular Science. He has directed two feature films and is an illustrator and commissioned painter. In this talk he will be describing his work on a crowed sourced innovation project to explore the prospect of future domestic robots. In particular he will trace the roots of the current project back to early science fiction prototypes that began life in 2007 Ulm, Germany at the 3rd International Conference on Intelligent Environments with a chance encounter and conversation with Simon Egerton and Victor Callaghan where Jimmy the robot, was first conceived. He will outline the current status of the project, its future plans and how you can all become involved.
Hsuan-Yi Wu (Jen)
Hsuan-Yi Wu (Jen) holds B.A.A. in international business from National Taiwan University and MSc innovation management and entrepreneurship from Manchester Business School, UK. Currently she is a teaching assistant in the Graduate School of Business Administration, specialising in technology and innovation management at the National Taiwan University. As a young talent, and early adopter in the area of science fiction prototyping, she has published two SFPs (‘The Spiritual Machine’ & ‘The Programmer and the Widow’) plus an journal paper in Futures (Imagination Workshops: An Empirical Exploration of SFP for Technology based Business Innovation) which proposed an evolutionary model for the SFP creation process that improved its performance as a business innovation tool with hard deliverable’s. In addition, this paper described how this evolutionary methodology function within business innovation workshop setting together with illustrating its use via a case study of such a workshop, “The World in 2050” which was undertaken in Taiwan in 2011. Hsuan-Yi’s talk will introduce these ideas and describe the cases study and the lessons arising. In addition, Hsuan-Yi was one of the founding and pioneering members of the Creative Science Foundation, and she will reflect on those early years and the directions the discipline may take in the futures Beyond academia, Hsuan-Yi has proved good at facilitating brainstorming amongst multi‐disciplinary teams, inspiring people to generate innovative ideas and showing them how to realise them by taking actions. Her experience in business consulting and start‐up business planning during the past 10 years has enabled entrepreneurs to successfully initiate their companies or develop new business another area her talk will touch on.
Join the CSf Linkedin to be kept informed of upcoming CFf activities.
You must be logged in to post a comment.